Douglas can figure out complex geometric ideas in his head,
but struggles to remember 6+2.

Kathy can spend hours every day building complex structures
out of Legos, but can’t spell “Lego.”

Leila knows every species of frog by name and can tell you
various characteristics from memory. She can’s tell a noun from a verb with ten
minutes of lead time.

Marcus can read very well and explain what he reads.
However, his standardized test scores are abysmal.

Mya has been working on subtraction for a year and still
gets upset when given 10-8. She can figure out 10 times 8 instantly.

Connor writes amazing inventive stories with interesting
plots and rich characters. Asking him to write two sentences in school with
proper capitalization and spelling is like pulling teeth.

Dee spends hours outside catching bugs, waiting for spiders
to emerge and catching dragonflies by their tails. She can’t sit still for more
than two minutes indoors.

Welcome to life with a VSL.

Many gifted children are “visual-spatial learners.” They
don’t see the world quite like the standard, linear, left-brained thinker. They
see the world in pictures. They see the big picture clearly. They often grasp
large and complicated issues in an instant. It’s the details that often trouble
them. Here’s a basic overview followed by a subject breakdown. (NOTE: Not every
single thing here will apply to every single VSL child!! As in all things,
there are individual differences and variants! Your child may not work quite
like the classic VSL child. Pick what does help and go with that.)

I have a VSL daughter preparing to begin third grade work in
the fall, and I am not a VSL myself, so I have done an inordinate and possibly
unhealthy amount of research on the subject. (I take it back. There are still
books I haven’t read. Research ho!)

Linda Kreger Silverman, author of Upside-down Brilliance, describes VSLs in this way: "The
visual spatial learner thrives on complexity, yet struggles with easy material;
loves difficult puzzles, but hates drill and repetition; is great at geometry
and physics, but poor at phonics and spelling. She has keen visual memory, but
poor auditory memory; is creative and imaginative, but inattentive in class; is
a systems thinker, all the while disorganized, forgets the details. He excels
in math analysis, but is poor at calculation; has high reading comprehension,
but low word recognition; has an excellent sense of humor, and performs poorly
on timed tests."

Rebecca L. Mann wrote that VSLs are “holistic” (perceive
relationships), “Aha! processors” (grasp it all in an instant or don’t get it
AT all, repetition/drill is ineffective), “creative,” “reflective” (need extra
time to process—which sounds like it contradicts “Aha” but if you’ve ever seen
a VSL, it doesn’t), and appear careless and sensitive.

My VSL can grasp infinity, logic puzzles, adores negative
numbers and algebra, thinks area and perimeter problems are simple, but still
struggles to remember 6+2 and mixes up her place values. She is at a middle
school level in science, but struggles with phonics and spelling. She is not
merely inattentive—she is, after years of struggle and natural methods and
working around it, on medication for being, to quote her doctor, “on paper
extremely ADD, and what I’m seeing in person matches.” In Freed’s book, Right-brained
Children in a Left-brained World, he claims that all children with ADD are
VSLs (although the reverse is not always true). There is a lot of overlap
between suspected ADD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Inattentive, to
be precise), dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder), and VSLs. They
don’t process information in the “usual” way. It can be extremely frustrating!

Visual:

These children think in pictures. They learn best with a
visual “hook” of some kind. Whiteboards with colored markers work beautifully.
Use different colors for different meanings. Draw a green line down the left
side and a red line down the right side to encourage reading left to write. We
have done place value with a different color for each place. Letting them
illustrate things appeals greatly to them. Sight words, illustrated books,
non-fiction books packed with pictures—these all work well with VSLs. One
method described by Freed for spelling involves the idea of mentally picturing
burning the word letter by letter into a wall, as if with a flamethrower or a
laser. Also, VSLs may be able to spell backwards as well as forwards! Have your
child make her own flashcards, with the answers on them, and use those or hang them around the classroom to
help burn the image of that equation with its answer in your child’s brain.
Computer games and video learning methods are also very popular with VSLs, for
obvious reasons!

Spatial:

VSLs can see how things fit together and work. Many VSL kids
have that engineering bug—building constantly with Legos and blocks, making
elaborate Snap Circuits and taking apart appliances. My girl likes those a
little bit, but they’re not her “thing.” Her spatial/engineering bent comes out
when she fixes my glasses, or walks out of the bathroom announcing that the
toilet broke but she fixed it with a diaper pin, or when she uses a laundry
basket or chair and an upside-down stick horse to lift a 6-foot-high hook &
eye latch to get into a locked room. If you want some quiet, just hand these kids
a box of Legos, pattern blocks, or a set of ½” PVC pipes and joints and let
them go.

Whole to Parts:

VSLs are “whole to parts” learners. They need to see the
entire picture first. Showing them the proverbial pieces and then trying to fit
them together one at a time will result in frustration and little, if any,
progress. More on that in a minute. Many VSLs are late talkers, watching and
observing speech quietly until BAM—they begin using it in large measure and
with gusto. In fact, my VSL did almost everything like that. She never tried
things. She waited, and watched, and thought about it, and the just did it. Reaching for things—she never waved her hand
near things or tried to grasp them. She waited. She watched. When she was at
the tail end of normal developmental range, she suddenly reached straight up
and wrapped her hand perfectly around something she wanted. Done. She refused
to even lay on her stomach, so crawling practice was non-existent. She never
scooted or scootched or army-crawled, either. She saw something she wanted,
crawled backwards once, reversed within a few feet, and crawled forward in
textbook fashion. Never looked back. She refused all phonics instruction. Any
that I did give her went, as they say, in one ear and out the other. She
couldn’t remember any of it at all. Instead, she watched me read to her. One
day I pointed to a page of Dr. Seuss and asked her what it said, not expecting
an answer. She read the entire page to me. And the next page. And the next.
This continued for several months. Once I realized she was truly reading (at a
basic level), I tried to give her actual phonics instruction, thinking she was
now “ready.” She shut down and refused to read at all for six months. Only when
I dropped all instruction and pressure would she look at a book. Then again, I
read to her and after a few months, bam, her reading level would jump. Read to
her for a few more months, her reading level would spike again. Explicit
instruction, tried again on occasion, yielded no results but a fair share of
tears. She literally ran away from The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching
Reading. So you can see that teaching a VSL brings its own challenges and
requires careful attention and selection of curricula.

VSLs are excellent at grasping the large picture while
struggling with the details. Incremental programs that teach in tiny pieces and
through drill/repetition are a death sentence to a VSL’s love of learning. They
need to see the “why” and then they seemingly intuit the “how.” Telling them the
rules of a subject without providing the context of the whole is just
meaningless data to them. Math fact drills are pointless, but using those same
facts in games and patterns where there is a clear goal and purpose to the math
facts? Perfect. On several occasions, my daughter has claimed to not know how
to solve a problem, sat in silence for a moment, then blurted out the correct
answer without any intermediate steps. She says that her brain knows the
answer. Curricula like Saxon Math, Ordinary Parents’ Guide to Teaching
Reading, First Language Lessons, and other step-by-step programs often bomb
terribly with VSLs. Curricula that are either very visual or guide the VSL to
see the large picture generally work much better. Documentaries and books full
of pictures work well. Silly mnemonics and songs help trigger the memory of the
whole package of whatever they are working on.

Organization:

Organization and focus is difficult for VSLs.
Color-coordinated checklists are an option. Workboxes are a popular choice
(we’re trying this next year.) Little hourglasses let them see the time
passing. Watches with timers or stopwatches help. Teach them to prioritize and
make lists from most to least important and then how to follow the lists.
Reduce audio clutter—try quiet music in headphones or audio-cancelling
headphones. There are several books on organization for ADHD/ADD children.
Those would also be helpful to VSL children. Smart but Scattered is the
one I see most often recommended.

Subject Mastery:

Reading, phonics, spelling, basic arithmetic and math facts
are some of the hardest areas for VSLs. There are some curricula that work
better than others, detailed later, but really in these areas I recommend
letting go. This will be a huge struggle for them and for you. If you wait
until they master these before moving on, they will be stuck on the same
material for a long time, far too long to hope to keep their interests. They
WILL get there in time, and keep working on these, but don’t hold them back
until they have full mastery of these areas or you will mostly likely have a
resistant learner who thinks school is horrible. I wouldn’t skimp on the
understanding, of course, but mastery/memorization of facts and rules is
completely out of proportion to the rest of their abilities in these kids. For
example, timed fact quizzes make my dd dissolve into tears, and we’ve worked on
addition for several years. Basic addition. However, she can also do
multiplication, pre-algebra, geometry, and so forth, despite her struggles with
math facts. Should I hold her back in first grade math for years until she can
add well when she can do most other areas of math with ease? Of course not! I
understand the huge dichotomy between the two kinds of math—the basic
computational arithmetic and “real math”--and she now uses a laminated 99-chart
behind her math work to help with facts she forgot. Then she can focus on the
important parts, like algebra. Soon we’ll add a multiplication chart. In
reading, we do ten minutes of phonics a day and I require a tiny amount of
reading but that also follows her lead... and now she’s reading chapter books
on her own.

To quote Rebecca Mann about something I have seen over and
over and over again in my house: “Do
not force the student to succeed at easier material before trying difficult
work. Emphasize mastery of higher level concepts instead of perfection of
simpler ones.” If you attempt to get a VSL to memorize all the basic math
facts, or achieve a certain speed or complete reading fluency before moving on,
you will spin your wheels for months or years, burn out your child, and
learning will become a chore. This is not how their brains work. I know of
children who are beginning algebra (and should be!) and are still working on
subtraction facts, or in algebra (and should be) and still need multiplication
tables. Play to THEIR strengths, not the typical expectations of linear
learners.

Resources:

Thankfully there is a growing body of work on VSLs! There is
a large list of VSL and gifted resources to peruse at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/visual-spatial.htm

The most popular books on teaching VSLs appear to be Upside-down
Brilliance, Unicorns are Real, and Right-brained Children in a
Left-brained World. There is a fantastic paper by Rebecca Mann available as
a pdf here: http://www.geri.education.purdue.edu/PDF%20Files/VisSpaPresentationHa.pdf

and an essay by the author of Upside-down Brilliance here: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm

Curricula:

Some curricula that work well for VSLs in general include
the following. This is not a comprehensive list! I’m sure I will find or
remember more as soon as I post this. Feel free to add any other ideas in the
comments section!

Math:

In math, try doing the five or ten hardest problems on the
page. If they get all right, move on. Repetition and drill are not helpful with
these children. (We’ve spent two years on 1st grade math. Dd still
can’t tell you some of her facts to 10. She does much better with 3rd
grade math and prealgebra! Computation is just the most elementary piece of
math. REAL math should be much more appealing to VSLs. Last time I checked,
most people in the math field actually use calculators. I don’t advocate
handing a VSL a calculator—they need to understand how math works—but don’t
think your child is bad at MATH because he or she is bad at COMPUTATION.) Timed
tests are a nightmare to VSLs. Mine will actually curl up and cry within a few
problems. You can encourage speed in other ways—make it a game, or see “how
fast can you do (a very small amount) of
problems” and then just try to beat his or her own speed. Try word
problems—VSLs love stories. This also means a lot of VSLs will enjoy math
storybooks! Check livingmath.net for ideas there. We also do “number stories”
(from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math) and these free-flowing math stories not only
get the girls doing math, but loving it, seeing its application, and
participating in creating the math story and more math problems. After number
stories in complete, my VSL often turns it into a full story with illustrations
and word puzzles!

Help your VSL identify patterns, such as in skip counting
and in the multiplication table.

A note about math—while manipulatives provide a great visual
and kinesthetic tool that works brilliantly for some VSLs, other find the
creative potential of manipulatives as art and building tools to be too great
and are therefore highly distracted by them. Focus, people, focus!

VSL-friendly math:

Miquon

MEP

Singapore

Beast Academy

Math-U-See

Times Tales

Timez Attack

MathRider

Teaching Textbooks

Hands-on Equations

Paper Patty Geometry

Right-Brained Multiplication & Division

Addition the Fun Way

Times Tables the Fun Way

Mathematics Their Way

Multiplication and Division Story Cards

Math Wizardry for Kids

How Math Works

Mathematical Mystery Tour

Math Mammoth is not a very visual curricula, but it works
for us because it is so clean and simple in the subject lessons. There is
nothing to distract my girl!

Base-ten blocks

Pattern blocks

Geoboards

Math-U-See blocks

Cuisinaire rods

Legos

Games for Math

Living math books/storybooks such as (just a few here):

The Cat in Numberland

Math for Smarty Pants

Penrose the Mathematical Cat

G is for Google

Sir Cumference books

Logic:

Oh, they love this. Any logic puzzle will do! Prufrock Press
makes a lot of fabulous logic items, as does the Critical Thinking Company.
Games like Chocolate Fix, Rush Hour, River Crossing, Tangrams, Pattern Blocks,
and so forth are great choices.

Primarily Logic

Logic Countdown

Lollipop Logic

Logic Safari

First-time Analogies

Rhymes, Riddles, and Reasoning Activities to Make Kids Think

MindBenders

Legos

Phonics/Reading:

Many VSLs do extremely well with sight words. They remember
the shape of the words. Some VSLs can spell as well backwards as forwards. This
creates frustration when learning to read and spell, as they sometimes write
completely backwards, too. I have only found one spelling program that works
for my VSL, but there are several phonics options.

Explode the Code

Leapfrog DVDs

Itchy’s Alphabet

Dancing Bears

Reading Reflex

SnapLetters

SnapWords

The Illustrated Book of Sounds and Their Spelling Patterns

Easy For Me Reading Program

All About Reading

Drawn into the Heart of Reading

101 Ways to Love a Book

Spelling:
All About Spelling

Apples & Pears

Grammar/Writing:

Encourage your VSLs incredible creative capacity, and be
gentle with the mechanics. Whole to parts is hard to find in grammar and
writing, but those sort of programs do exist!

Teaching Writing To Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic Learners

English for the Thoughtful Child

Michael Clay Thompson grammar

BraveWriter

No More; I’m Done!

Teaching English thorough Art

Science:

Science is great for some VSLs, because there is such a rich
visual cornucopia to be enjoyed. In science, my VSL takes a literal approach to
the “whole-to-parts” methodology. She adores dissection. For those who do not
want to get messy, there are virtual dissection options and “look inside”
products/books. There is a series on PBS called “Inside Nature’s Giants” that
documents dissection of large wild animals, such as a beached sperm whale. This
is free to view on the PBS Website.

Any non-fiction book with lots of pictures such as DK
Eyewitness books

Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method

The Private Eye

The Berenstein Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature

Max Axiom books

Bill Nye

Magic School Bus

Ellen McHenry’s science programs

Science Fusion

Nancy Larson

Dissection kits

Microscope

Bug collecting kits, butterfly nets, magnifying glass,
nature journal

History/Geography:

Long read-alouds are typical in history and will be tough
for VSLs. You can get your children more used to listening by using audiobooks
in the car and at quiet time. It works best to have something to occupy the
hands—a snack, thinking/silly putty, coloring activity, Legos, etc.

Voyages through Time

A Little History of the World: Illustrated Edition

Story of the World with Activity Book

100 Sacred Places

Horrible Histories

Liberty Kids

Hands-on Culture

Atlases

Any documentaries

Most non-fiction books

Create a visual timeline across the wall

Art:

Anything. Everything. I can’t think of an art program that
wouldn’t work with a VSL.

Foreign Language:

Most language courses involve a lot of multi-sensory
techniques, with songs and games and DVDs. Many libraries have access to
foreign language programs like Mango for free. My favorite language for a VSL
is American Sign Language, as it’s extremely visual and tactile! For that,
Signing Time DVDs and the LifePrint website are fantastic. I’m not well versed
in this area, as we only focus on ASL at this time and as I said, many many
programs would fit the bill. I can give my personal seal of approval to:

Signing Time

LifePrint

Salsa Spanish

Rosetta Stone

There are many, many more that use visual and mnemonic
techniques that would be fabulous. Please share if you ahve any favorites.

Organization:

Following Directions

Linguisystems Executive Function workbooks

Sue Patrick’s Workbox System

Concentration

What Shall I Do Now, Teacher?

Learning to Listen

Listen, Remember, and Do

Organizing the Disorganized Child

Smart but Scattered

The Organized Student

I’m ending with another quote from Rebecca Mann. “Believe in
these children, they may well be the future Edisons and Einsteins of the
world.”

(ETA: I will add hotlinks in a bit. I’m late posting as it
is! Sorry!!)

Friday, June 29, 2012

Well, I obviously haven't posted here in a while. A long while. I've posted on our family blog, but nothing for the public (outside of running my mouth on message boards daily). But, I may have a post going up soon for Gifted Education Week, so I thought I should revitalize this one a bit so it's less dusty....

At this point, A is entering 2nd in the fall but working all over the board, from 1st/2nd up to middle school level, depending on the subject. C is officially entering K in the fall, but will move up to 1st grade material soon. This year I'll be homeschooling two plus dealing with the adorable and demanding toddler.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Aren't you pleased? LOL.So, today was the letter "B," and dd1 is more comfortable with that. Long lines are easier to draw than short ones. She had fun coloring and reading the words, but dd2 kept demanding my attention and dd1 started to get bored without interaction. She left a little bit undone on her papers, but that's fine at this point. She wanted to do something else, so we learned our ASL/French for the day, button/bouton. Dd2 had some more transferring activities, and dd1 and I had fun with our "what starts with _" game. Yesterday she surprised me with "apricot" for "a." We play that at home and in the car. Today was dd2's therapy playgroup and dd1's dance, so we kept the other stuff to a minimum. Dd1 had a blast at dance. I was impressed with her ability to dance as a penguin (her animal of choice)--keeping a penguin element while dancing gracefully. Seriously--you try to dance beautifully as a penguin with a straight face and see how well you do! Dd2 had fun at playgroup too. She kept diving into the ball pit. Normally that would sting a bit, jumping bum-first into a shallow ball pit, but dd2 is not afraid of something as ridiculous as "pain." She was more upset by the fact she couldn't dance with dd1. It makes her sad. She points to herself and asks, "too?" in a little lonely voice. Some of my curriculum showed up and I'm excited--I think we might stop the alphabet when the rest of it gets here, as the phonics part starts at A anyway. I just wanted to get her brushed up with a little overview and a taste of scheduling every day, esp since dd2 NEEDS a schedule, I think, to thrive. I am cheap and am waiting to hear back from some people on used curriculum books but if I don't hear by tomorrow I'll just grab the last ones I need new. I am also getting math manipulatives soon, hopefully. I have a fun book where you use the rods to make letters and do alphabet activities as well as sneaking in math. I think dd1 will like it a lot.Yes, this one was boring, because it's late and I can't remember half of it, lol. But I wanted to update daily like I said. Two in a row, yay! Oh, and the cupcakes are long gone. Of course.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

We usually unschool, but I have discoverd structure is very helpful for dd2, and dd1 loves to learn new things all the time, so I'm starting a more official homeschool schedule. I have some curricula, and I am also making a conscious effort to do our own schooling every day. I found a wonderful website called EnchantedLearning.com, and it has tons of printouts. Not just coloring pages and letter tracing, but mini books in French-English, lined paper to print out for our own use, worksheets like "label the parts of this airplane in Spanish" with answers, the detailed scientific parts of flowers, a short essay the history of aviation with related printouts, etc. Tons of resources. So while we wait for the official curricula, we are doing my stuff. Hopefully we'll stick with it! I think the packaged curriculum (Hearts of Dakota "Little Hearts For His Glory" will be really fun for dd2 to participate in, as well as being both fun and educational for dd1. Lots of songs and dramatic play that tie in with the reading and such. I *want* to update here a little of what we did every day, for some extra accountability, lol.

So, before we start her phonics program, and as HOD hasn't arrived, I started us on a basic alphabet review--26 days. Today was A, obviously. We had pages to write out the letter A/a, color A words, color letter A/a, match the picture with the word, a little French-English page, and learning a new A sign. Dd1 loves capital A and can already draw it, but gets frustrated with little a. So we did a picture match, wrote one a. Did another picture match, wrote one a, etc. In the reading for the picture/word matches, dd1 was again foiled by the Engish language--she noted that "apple" had a silent E so the "aah" should be "A." But it's not. Ack! They both colored, and dd1 did write several decent a's but also several that were really a d or just messy. But not bad at all. Then she traced A/a/B/b (she likes B better than a too, apparently), and colored some more. Friends came over and we stopped, only learning an A sign while they were here--"awake." But then I decided we should learn the same sign & French word, so we learned both after our friends left--"avion," for airplane, and the sign for it. Then dd1 colored her avion, wrote out avion (had me help her with the a, but was quite happy to write "v i o n" on her own, and then wrote a capital A afterwards. It seems to make her happier to show that she can write one of the A's well on her own. She does not stay in the little lines yet, but seriously. She's how old again, lol? Not even going to worry about that. Then she cut out two pictures of airplanes (and cut them into tiny pieces), and is supposed to be drawing an airplane/avion but I hear scissors so I think avion #3 is being shredded too. She loves to cut. Dd2 colored a picture, learned "awake" before her nap. and transferred blocks from a bread pan into a bowl and back (using her hand and then her hand inside an oven mitt), and she liked the latter the most.

ETA: Then we cleaned up the cut paper shreds and made cupcakes. We traced letters in the batter with the whisk as we stirred, plus reading the ingredients and doing addition/subtraction with the eggs!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

So, the dds hate it when I do yoga. So I am on a mission to find yoga we can do together as a family, kid-friendly yoga that still wears me out. We are hitting up the library first. Today was our first victim, Kids Yoga ABCs. It was actually much better than I anticipated. There are a lot of yoga moves disguised as fun letters and animals (from the traditional cat and cow to fun animals like iguanas), plus a few basic yoga concepts (a short song about Namaste and an Om exercise). Dd1 had a blast being a caterpillar and an eagle, and I got a workout with "iguana" and the wheel. I am apparently sorely out of shape, lol. We only get each DVD for a week at our library so we'll see what the replay value is tomorrow, but I think it's entertaining enough for kids to keep dd1 involved and until I'm strong enough to do a proper backbend (sorry, the wheel) it will work quite well for me, too. I also discovered that I either need to steam clean the carpets or pull out the yoga mat. It smells funny.

So, dd2 has a speech evaluation next week. Dh and I both think there is nothing organically wrong with her. She just doesn't see the point. She can sign very well, and picks up new signs as fast as we can teach them now that she conquered her receptive issues. She says, "ma," "da," "ba," and "w" plus vowels. She does NOT babble. She will now say "dada" or "mama" for an adult and this week she started to imitate "bah...bee?" when we say "baby" (very, very emphasized per the usual to help her pick out the sounds). She doesn't say it on her own, but it's her first two-sound combo besides "uh-oh" so that's impressive. She also now says "mi" for milk instead of "mah." So see, she's progressing! She just doesn't see any need to use speech, really. She signs and signs and if you ask her to speak instead of sign, she just signs again and again and again and gets very frustrated and cries/screams. It is kind of nice to have a 21-month-old who can't say "no," LOL, but she can shake her head and then throw a tantrum. *sigh* We're working on the self-control stuff. She doesn't have any. But that is half the SPD and half her personality. There's nothing inhibiting her speech but her own desire or lack of. When the developmental behavioraist tries to get dd2 to talk, dd2 just stares blankly at her, so it's not just her ignoring us. She just sees no reason to use her mouth. She'll sign. That's "saying" it to her. And if she does make her sounds, she signs along with them. The vocal is just for emphasis, lol. We talk and add gestures for emphasis. She signs and adds a sound for emphasis. It's not "speech" to her.

I have all these fun ideas and I'm usually just too tired. But I'm going to try. I need to actually make contact with the outside world occasionally, lol. I need to talk about more SPD insanity (speech evaluation next week. Seriously?? It's not that she can't talk. She just has no interest in it whatsoever.), ways for broke peeps to go green (it's actually cheaper when you break it down, and there are really, really easy ways to get started), going vegetarian for carnivores (as we go from meat twice a day to maybe once a week and beyond, and meet interesting characters like "TVP" and "seitan" and find out how to make them honestly taste like meat without slaving away in the kitchen), lots of budgeting and money-saving ideas, breastfeeding (but TopHat usually has that covered), babywearing, dh's new self (or "adventures in therapy, medication, support groups, starting school again and generally growing up"). And how to do all of this on 4 hours of sleep a night, every night. For years. Help... ;P

About Me

I am a crazy-busy knitting, spinning, homeschooling mother of three. I have my BS in English, and eventually plan on pursuing a CPM or ND. J, my hubby, is working & going to university full-time. I have slowly transformed from a traditional hospital/epidural-birthing, fully vaccinating, mostly formula-feeding, bouncer-using, follow-the-leader mom to a co-sleeping, breastfeeding (in public!), babywearing, selective/delayed vaccinating, cloth diapering, homebirthing, food-aware mom. The children have food allergies & love learning. We do not have cable...but my kids watch a lot of DVDs. I am a geeky gamer chick who is painfully shy in person, but very opinionated once I open my big mouth. I am a 28-year-old LDS woman who listens to NPR, is a Utah Democrat, and freelance edits on occasion.